Step Into the Past at the Georgia Museum of Agriculture

Sara Hand gives a tour of one of the true treasures of Tifton: The Georgia Museum of Agriculture and Historic Village.

“We opened as the Georgia Agrirama in 1976 when my grandfather Forrest Fank who was a state senator at the time wanted to find a way to house the first mobile peanut combine.”

Since then, it’s only gotten bigger.

More than 22,000 people visit per year, and over half are students.

It’s open Tuesday-Saturday 9 a.m.-4 p.m., and offers an art gallery with a revolving door of exhibits.

This quarter, they showed off an arrangement of quilts.

100 years of progress

All throughout museum are reminders of just how easy the daily tasks we have today are compared to over a century ago.

Before my visit, I had never seen cured tobacco in person.

So this I’m guessing is a pile of fake tobacco leaves?

“No these are real tobacco leaves, no these are real cured tobacco.”

I guess that’s what the smell is.

There are very few replica or faux exhibits. The sights, textures and even smells are can take you right back to the 1800s.

“In 2010 the Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College took over administrative control of the Agrirama. They subsequently renamed it the Georgia Museum of Agriculture and the Historic Village to better reflect our mission and everything we do here.”

And once you’re done with the museum, your visit isn’t complete until you check out the historic village.